Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] The other key aspect to understand about Discovery is the power of slowing down. Discovery is the one area in our sales process that we really want to slow down and we want to take our time. Because if we rush through discovery, if we move too quickly from discovery to selling, the true discovery stops once we start pitching, once we start selling our solution, the customer starts buying.
[00:00:26] I'm Dennis Sorensen, and this is the Think Big, Think Win Bigger podcast. This is the podcast for sales leaders and salespeople who know they're capable of more and are looking for a system that is predictable, repeatable, scalable and forecastable for growth. It's not theories, it's not motivational speeches. It's an ambitious way to operate your business.
[00:00:49] Hello and welcome back to the Think Big Win Bigger podcast. I am your host, Dennis Sorensen, and I am really pleased that you could be here today to join me for episode number nine.
[00:01:00] Today we're going to talk about discovery and how discovery helps us reveal the path, the path to sales and the path to ambition, the path to strategy and the path to execution. Discovery is important for us in sales across all elements or all areas of the system that we talk about.
[00:01:20] We talk about being process driven. And that process driven is planning, preparation, practice and play. And underpinning that are the three pillars of ambition, strategy, and execution. Discovery is important in every aspect of what we do. And so I wanted to bring this episode today because we're. This episode will act as really a bridge between what we've been talking about and ambition and what we'll be talking about in future, the next set of episodes, which is really around strategy and developing a strategy for our accounts or for our sales territory. The core idea about Discovery is that it shapes our thinking. It shapes our thinking in ambition, it shapes our thinking in strategy, and it shapes our thinking and execution. And it's that discovery is really important in all aspects of that. It's particularly important as we're thinking about going down the process of building our ambition plan, about building that white space and the things that we need to be able to do to develop that ambition plan, to truly understand the real potential of our accounts to discovery shapes that thinking. Discovery helps us to reveal opportunity because as we learn more, as we study more, and we gain more information about our accounts, we can begin to think better about how the products and solutions that we bring to the table can help our customers solve the problems that they're most concerned about solving. Discovery is a thread that runs through ambition, strategy and execution. It is a continuous process of discovery. It's not a stage in what we do in sales. It's something that we have to develop and continue to develop as seller is just sort of a continuous muscle that we use all the time in our sales efforts. Discovery is something that can be used and is universal in its application. It's something that is used across all different types of sales. The biggest opportunities are discovered over time through really good discovery. Discovery expands our understanding of the customer, and it really applies to all different areas of what we do in sales. I've had a lot of different situations over my career where I've gone into a customer account for an initial discovery call with some understanding of what they did and what they were doing. But it was that early preparation and discovery that helped us in that initial set of actual customer interactions to expand on that discovery work we had done in our ambition planning. It helped us to have different questions that we would ask in different areas that we would explore with the customer. Because of the knowledge we had gained in the work that we had done. The discovery work we had done in the ambition area help us to shape the way that we interact with our customers in those initial discovery calls that we had with them, as well as the work that we did with them on an ongoing basis. Earlier on in the podcast episodes, I talked to you about the book how champions think by Dr. Bob Rotella. And discovery has an important aspect to play in this as well. Or at least I think that that the book How Champions think influences discovery, because in that book, Dr. Rotella talks about how elite performers observe things differently. And I think that's an important thing that we should bring to the way that we conduct ourselves in discovery. He also talks about how the elite performers stay present longer in the moment. And it's really important that when we're doing Discovery that we be very present in that discovery, and that we pay attention to the things we're learning or reading about our customer, but also when we're with our customer, to be very present in listening to the answers, getting so that we're prepared to ask the next discovery question that builds on the question that the customer just answered for us. The other key thing about how champions think is that champions notice things that other people miss. This was something that I highlighted in the previous episodes that I did with my friend and business partner, John Geese, because one of the things that I noted early on in my relationship with John was his ability to notice things that other people miss. And I think that's a very important aspect of what we do in discovery and what we do in really being process driven in our sales effort. I also talked about how, I use the metaphor of the mountain and ambition, right, because it was something that we wanted to talk about in terms of being able to understand the real height of the mountain, not what we realistically think we can climb. And discovery is an important aspect of helping us to determine what the real height of the mountain is. And it also helps to shape in strategy and execution how we expand what's realistic for ourselves to accomplish through discovery. And so discovery is a really important aspect, both pre customer discussion, but also in the discussion with the customer. Discovery explains the possibility for us because we gain a deeper understanding of what our customer cares about. We understand about their business, we gain an understanding about the larger opportunity that exists for them and therefore for us by being able to help them, them accomplish what they're trying to accomplish. It gives us broader visibility into their operation, to their industry.
[00:06:22] And one of the things that I think is really interesting is when we start to think about, even in discovery that hasn't been applied to a particular customer, we can take the learnings that we had from one customer and apply those to the discovery we do with the next. And so as we continue to do this, as we continue to develop that discovery muscle, we can get really good at how we conduct this process of discovery with our customers. It helps us to move beyond what's immediate, what's transactional, what's visible to us today, and be able to move towards things that are transformational and the future state outcomes that we can create with our products and solutions for our customer. The other really interesting thing that I think about discovery is that it really is universal in its application. It's universal no matter what we sell. It's important to us in everything that we do, even no matter what it is that we're going to market with, whether we're in selling heavy equipment or whether we're selling personnel services or staffing services, whether we're selling commercial roofing services or like I did in much of my career in selling technology, that discovery is a really important aspect. No matter what it is that we sell different industries, but it's the same principle. A deeper understanding of our customers helps us drive a stronger outcome. The other aspect that I think is really interesting about discovery is that even if we can't customize our solution or customize our product for the customer, we can create a custom experience for them. And so one of the things that discovery unlocks for us is our ability to help create that custom experience for the customer. And it's that custom experience that helps us to move beyond transactional into being a premium for our customers, in that we bring greater value to them through the knowledge that we have, because we can shape what we're talking to them about, to the things that matter the most, the things that are the most relevant to them. It helps us to better align to our customers, and it helps us to better create value for our customers as we go forward. One of the things I learned is that customers will often present what looks like a small issue.
[00:08:36] But when discovery, when we do really good discovery, it deepens our engagement with them, and we realize that the issue is connected to something much larger that's going on inside of the customer's business. Thinking big changes our discovery. So being ambitious, having an ambition mindset changes the discovery we do, because the questions that we ask evolve, the conversations that we have with our customers evolve, the level of preparation that we do ahead of the sales call evolves, and that the relationships themselves evolve and become stronger and stronger for us. Even if our business, the things that we sell, are really very much sort of greenfield, and we're doing a lot of prospect selling so that when we close an account, we really move on to the next account. The thing that's important to understand is that discovery can help us from one account to the next. Discovery that we do with one customer can actually help us get better and stronger as we go forward into the next opportunity that we're selling into. So the big question for us right in discovery is, what is the business trying to become? What problems are they trying to solve? What objectives do they have that they're trying to shape? And this is important. If you think back to the very first episode that I did with Mike, or if you've read any of Mike's books, Mike really talks about having business conversations with our customers versus product conversations with our customers. And it's through strong discovery that we can begin to position ourselves in that way that we're having business conversations and not product conversations. It helps us to strengthen our sales story, the story that we go out and we. We want to deliver to our customer. And then the discovery that we do and the work that we do with one customer can help us with the next. It helps us with those strategic conversations so that we stop sounding like a vendor, and we start sounding and looking like a true partner to our customer. And that's what we want to be. We want to be a larger, more valuable partner to our customers. So that our customers see us as making big changes to big things for them, solving big problems for them, and not just incremental or small problems for them. I've had customer relations relationships where the conversation was completely changed by the discovery that we were doing. From a product focused motion to a much more business level discussion with the customer. The customer stopped seeing us as a vendor and started seeing as someone who could help them think through the business problems that they're trying to solve. So discovery before the engagement is really important. Discovery starts before we start having the conversation with the customer. We have to study, we have to understand the customer, we have to understand the type of business that they're in, the type of industry that they're in, the types of competitors that they have, and the problems that they're encountering that our products and solutions can help them solve. So we got to do the research, we got to observe, we got to put ourselves really out into the river. My former CEO at Teradata used to say to me that business is a river. And what you have to do is you have to wade out into that river and you have to let the water flow around you, you have to feel what's under your feet, you have to feel the temperature of the water, you have to see what's in the water. And so we have to immerse ourselves in our customer's business, in the world that they live in, so that we can develop a true point of view and understanding of the story that we need to be able to tell in order to unlock the greatest potential that exists inside these accounts. In enterprise sales. And the work that we used to do, we used to do a lot of research and really going, going out and looking at reading annual reports or 10ks or 10qs of our customers, listening to the customers earnings calls, looking at the investor presentations that we could find. And there are so many resources available today that weren't available early on in my career and that have evolved and even gotten better from later on in my career. All the information that's available to us through the Internet, everything that we can learn about the customer, about the industry. And now if you think about all of the AI tools that are available to help us do discovery, this is a really important area, I think, for how we can leverage AI as sellers to actually create more sales cycles for ourselves by doing really good discovery and then building on that discovery and learning and being able to do it faster and faster the way that, that faster certainly than the way that we could do it back When I was initially starting as a seller, or even in my early days of my career at Teradata, both as a sales manager, various levels of sales management, the tools that are available to be able to do this are readily available, and they're out there and they're accessible by any of us. In sales, the key thing to understand is that we're not trying to gather information. What we're trying to do is develop insight that's going to be able to help our customers and therefore help us to grow our business. In sales, there have been many situations where preparation has completely changed the credibility of that conversation that we have with our customer. We're walking into a meeting, we already have an understanding of their business, the pressures that they're under, their most strategic initiatives, and that helps us to shape the discussion that we have with the customer, and it changes how the customers view us immediately. Discovery helps us to build the point of view that we need to be able to bring perspective and curiosity to the meeting. In the qualified sales leader, John McMahon talks about all of the characteristics of the greatest seller. And one of the things that he highlights is curiosity. Curiosity is being one of the things that sets apart the individual that he talks about in the book from all the other sellers is the just the tremendous level of curiosity that this particular seller has. And we have to bring that curiosity with, with us to our customer accounts. We have to be able to come in there and be constantly looking for and making sure that we truly understand the customer's problems and that we keep digging so we don't just accept the first problem that we come across and then try to solve it. That when we come across the problem, that we continue to ask questions so that we uncover more and more and more of the problem, or more, more and more different problems that surround the particular problem that is first revealed to us. So we have to bring that to the conversation and bring our informed thinking to the conversation so that we can have a better conversation and that the insights that we gain through that conversation help us to better shape the solution or the story that we're going to tell to the customer when we come back and we make a presentation on how we can help them best solve their problem. In reference to the qualified sales leader, what we want to be able to do is to understand the customer's business as deeply as we can. We want to understand the pressures that they're under, the operational impact that they're having, that these problems are creating for them, the priorities of the executives that are leading our Customers business, the consequences to their business of not making the change or solving the problem that they're trying to solve or that our solution can solve for them. And really the transformational opportunity that requires a deeper understanding of the customer's business.
[00:15:53] So when we develop our point of view, one of the things that we want to be thinking about as we go into our customer discussions or get ready for these discovery meetings with our customers, we want to really understand, well, what's, what's changing, what's changing for them? What's what things are impacting their world? How are they being impacted by different economic conditions that are happening in the world? How are they being impacted by tariffs? How are they being impacted by geopolitical things that are going on in the world and do those things matter to them? And if so, how and why? And we want to understand that as we come in because we want to shape our discovery questions ahead of time. We want to be prepared when we go in front of the customer with our questions and then be very present when, when we're getting the answers to those questions so that we can think about the next level of questions that we need to ask so that through our curiosity, we can uncover all of the problems or the full nature of the problem that the customer has. And then we want to make sure that we're thinking about where value can be created for the customer and what could this become for them if they purchase our solutions or they purchase the products that we're bringing to the table to help solve their problems. Discovery is really a collaborative exploration with the customer. We're exploring with them how we can help them solve the problems or unlock the value that that is not currently there for them. One of the things that I've seen over the years is that when you arrive with a perspective instead of a pitch, the customer starts engaging differently. The more the conversation becomes collaborative, the more strategic it becomes and the more expansive it becomes with the customer. Discovery is also important when we think about going high, wide and deep inside of our customer's organization.
[00:17:43] So we talked in previous episodes about this concept of high. How many top level C level relationships do we have inside of the account? That's really the concept of going high. How wide are we, meaning how many different functional areas have we spoken to? Have we spoken to finance? Have we spoken to operations? Have we spoken to the supply chain team? Have we spoken to marketing? What are all the different areas of the organization that we can speak to and do discovery in? And so high, wide and deep plays a big role. And then deep is really how many different conversations have we had within finance? How many different relationships have we built inside of finance? And so high, wide, and deep is another key aspect of discovery. To think about the types of discovery we need to do high in the organization, wide in the organization, and deep in the organization. And one of the keys to understanding this is really that, that discovery that we do ahead of actually having the conversation with the customer, because we can begin to think about and develop a point of view about the areas that are going to be impacted by the product or solution that we're bringing to the table. One of the other key aspects that we learn from John McMahon and the qualified sales leader is really the larger the opportunity, the more stakeholders who are involved, the more alignment that we need to have with all of those different stakeholders, and the more organizational understanding we need to help them develop across all of these different functions. So discovery needs to expand high, wide, and deep, particularly in complex enterprise sales. We need to be. Be really, really thinking seriously about how we go high, wide, and deep. I've seen opportunities start in one small part of an organization, and then through discovery, eventually expand across multiple groups in an organization, multiple functions, stakeholders, because the real impact was much broader and much greater than initially understood in that one part of the organization.
[00:19:40] The other key aspect to understand about discovery is the power of slowing down. Discovery is the one area in our sales process that we really want to slow down and we want to take our time. Because if we rush through discovery, if we move too quickly from discovery to selling, the true discovery stops. Once we start pitching, once we start selling our solution, the customer starts buying. And so we have to be very deliberate in our thinking about how we're approaching the discovery that we're doing and make sure that we've gathered all the insights we can before we move to begin pitching or solving problems. The biggest opportunities often sit beyond that first conversation that we're going to have with our customers. And so we've got to stay curious as long as possible. We've got to resist rushing to solve problems. The key thing, I think, is that we have to be productively selfish with our time, as Mike Weinberg talks about. And so we have to carve out time for ourselves to be able to do this discovery. And this discovery, again, happens in the planning, portion and development of our ambition and strategic account plan. And it happens in our preparation. We have to prepare really well before we go to these customer calls. And we have to make sure that the discovery is worth the time that we're investing in it, and we've got to invest the time in it to make it worth the time that we're investing in it. Discovery shapes the positioning of our solution.
[00:21:13] It shapes the strategy that we're going to bring to the sales motion. It shapes the relationships that we need to have and helps us to identify the gaps in those relationships. It helps us to define the opportunity size, both initially pre conversation with the customer and post conversation with the customer. And then it helps us to define the path of execution that we've got to go through, because that discovery effort helps us to define the customer's buying process. The key point here really is that slowing down in discovery often creates acceleration in our sales process later, through discovery, we can also find ways to create competitive advantage for ourselves because we can position ourselves differently inside of the customer's operation and the value that we can bring that's unique to our product or solution that differentiates from any of the competitors that they other, you know, the competitors that they could consider. Another thing that I've learned over the years is that, you know, some of the biggest opportunities didn't emerge from that first conversation. They emerged later on in the sales motion through that continuous discovery and through the bringing that ongoing curiosity to that sales motion. And oftentimes it's after the trust has been developed with the customer. And one of the key ways that we can develop that trust with the customer is through this level of discovery again, once they begin to see us as more than a vendor, as a strategic partner to their business, they begin to open up and that trust gets built and it gets strengthened over time, and they begin to really see that we understand and care about what's truly happening inside of their business. Discovery shapes the path. It reveals the path. It tells us what matters to the customer, who it matters to inside of the customer, the leverage points that they're dealing with inside, and that we have to be able to understand and be able to leverage in our own sales motion as we go through. It helps us to define the path to value for the customer, and it helps us to define what must be true for the customer to realize that value and for therefore, for us to realize that value. In one of our future episodes, I'm going to go deeper into the discussion of execution and really the paradigm of Ghost. And Ghost is really important in execution in that we, we must define what our goals are, what our objectives are, our strategies are, and then the tactics to execute those strategies are, and we want to define those. But the Ghost paradigm also applies to us in discovery, because if we can understand what the customer's goals are, and then we can begin to define what the objectives are that the customer is pursuing to achieve those goals, and then define the strategies that the customer is executing to achieve their objectives, we can begin to think about how we can align to the customer strategies and to their objectives to help them achieve their goals.
[00:24:04] And that's where we have great opportunity to be able to differentiate ourselves from competitive solutions that might be out there in the marketplace and begin to shape our solution and our product to create that custom experience that I talked about in that sales motion that for the customer, creates something very unique and special and gives us a competitive advantage in the way that we go about selling our product and solutions.
[00:24:30] So the important thing is that discovery remains a thread across ambition. Strategy and execution is really the bridge that we need to build from ambition to strategy. And then when we get to building out our strategic account plan or strategic territory plan, discovery plays a really critical role in how effective we are and how good that plan is as we go about taking that to the market. And that's where we'll pick up is in strategy in the next set of episodes where we'll talk about now that we've developed ambition, we've done really good discovery to help us develop that ambition plan, and we've done really good discovery to be able to initiate some initial conversations that developing that strategic account plan and that strategic territory plan, then help is, is influenced by how well we do that discovery on that front end and then how well we do discovery on an ongoing basis throughout the sales motion with our customers.
[00:25:29] And so I hope that this discussion of discovery was beneficial to you and I look forward to you joining me on the next episode of the podcast where we'll dive deeper into strategy, strategic account planning, strategic territory planning, and how we can best shape the outcomes that we're looking for for our customers and for ourselves.
[00:25:49] So thank you very much for joining me for this episode, Episode nine on Discovery.
[00:25:55] Look forward to seeing the next one and until then, just win.
